


Tumblr Fic: Marvel

by AlchemyAlice



Series: Fic Fragments of Doom [1]
Category: Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Comment Fic, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, M/M, Multi, a bit of everything really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 11:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 15,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7530931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlchemyAlice/pseuds/AlchemyAlice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic fragments rescued from tumblr, the Avengers edition!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. civil war averted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For RCMcLachlan's prompt: "civil war averted"

In the end, it’s Bucky who decides.

“I don’t trust him,” Steve says, not for the first time, as he paces the safe house. “He means well, but he’s–”

“Scared,” Bucky supplies. His arm creaks with his breath. “He should be. So am I. I don’t want to be put in a hole to rot. I’ve done enough of that.”

“And Stark’ll–”

“ _He_ won’t do shit. The system’ll do something. We don’t know what. But,” Bucky cuts off, raking a hand through his hair and then across his mouth. It’s an unfamiliar gesture, enough that Steve is once again forcibly reminded that the friend he’d known from Brooklyn is no longer the one he has now. Still his brother, just…

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he insists.

“Except that I _have,”_ Bucky growls. “It may not be my fault, but all of those awful things in that—that _file_ that’s everywhere now, that was me. I wasn’t right, but it was me.”

“What he’s suggesting isn’t justice.”

“What he’s suggesting is going to get the fewest people _killed.”_ Bucky exhales. “At least for now.” He looks up at Steve with infuriating doe eyes. “At least talk to him.”

Steve looks at Sam, who’s been watching them go back and forth for the past twenty minutes, not saying anything, arms crossed. At Steve’s expectant look, he raises his eyebrows.

“Look,” he says, “You’ve got a couple of options here. One, go after the establishment, which I’m not saying is the wrong thing to do—establishment’s got a lot wrong with it—but it will cause a lot of collateral damage, not the least of which being the team you’ve just formed, the allies you’ve just found these past few years.”

“Romanoff,” Bucky murmurs, and Steve winces. The last time she talked to him, she’d made her position very clear.

“I put my name out because I was willing to be accountable,” she had said, eyes still damnably warm, but also sad. “I stand by that. I stand by the reasons behind it. I joined SHIELD before, remember? I stand by that, too.”

“Two,” Sam continues, “You talk. Maybe you work something out, maybe you don’t. But at least you’ll know why Stark’s doing what he’s doing. You might not agree with it, but better to know than not.”

“And three?” Steve asks, with growing dread.

Sam shrugs. “Run.”

Bucky barks out a laugh. “Yeah, _right.”_

Steve sighs. “It’s not going to—“

“Sam,” Bucky cuts in, “Can we have a minute?”

Steve looks at him incredulously. “Sam’s one of us, anything you gotta say, he can hear.”

“I don’t have to, though,” Sam says, putting his hands up. “I’ve said my two cents, and frankly, listening to you two for half an hour is exhausting. I’m gonna go call my mom on the secure line and let her know we’re all right.”

He steps out. Steve looks at Bucky. “What?”

Bucky looks right back at him. “You’re taking this awfully badly, for a guy who took Duggan royally fucking us over once or twice with barely a blink.”

“Your life’s at stake, Buck.”

Bucky tips his head in acknowledgement. “So it is. So it was. What’s eating you this time?”

Steve glances away.

“He got under your skin, huh?” Bucky says, with a crooked smile.

“We barely know each other,” Steve says, but it sounds insincere even to his own ears.

“You know enough. And from what I’ve seen, he’s a better man than his father.”

Steve swallows. “He is.”

“So go,” Bucky says. “Go before you start a fight you don’t want to finish. Idiot.”

Steve goes.

***

Tony looks tired, when Steve comes into the offices at Stark Tower. It’s…disturbing. Steve’s seen Tony tired before, of course, numerous times, but it’s always been tinged with manic energy, a last crackle of fight that keeps his tongue sharp and his eyes focused. The bags under his eyes this time speak of slow, grinding exhaustion that Steve remembers seeing in the eyes of his men, when they’d been walking for weeks, sleeping fitfully in foxholes.

“Oh,” Tony says, uninflected. “We’re talking now? That’s new and different.”

Steve takes a slow breath. “I deserve that.”

From behind his desk, Tony tilts his head up to regard him. “Long time no see, Cap. What can I do for you?”

Slowly, Steve crosses the room. He’s in his civvies, having purposefully left his shield at home, and he feels underdressed in his jeans next to Tony’s bespoke suit. “You can explain to me,” he says slowly, sitting down in one of the ergonomic client chairs, “How a guy who told Congress to fuck right off over his intellectual property can suddenly turn around and act holier-than-thou about vigilantism.”

Tony’s eyes flash, but then the spark is gone again. “The day I have a leg to stand on in a holier-than-thou competition with you, Cap, is the day I should probably retire.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Then it’s Tony who exhales.

“Did it ever occur to you,” he says, scrubbing a hand across his face, “That I might have people to protect? Just like you?”

Steve opens his mouth; Tony talks over him.

“Except, see, they aren’t supersoldiers. They haven’t got special powers, they’re not gods or heroes, they’re just _people._ Like me. I’m just a guy in a suit, remember?”

“We save people, we keep them safe,” Steve says. “That’s what we do.”

“We try. We do our best. But what about when our best isn’t enough? What if our best is a massive fuckup, that ruins a whole country, what then?”

Steve cocks his head. “Is this…about guilt?”

“You’re damned right it’s about guilt,” Tony snaps, hand coming down on the table flat. “What happened in Sokovia was all me, and like it or not, I should be tried for it. But because Iron Man got some good press about it in the States, fighting the good fight with the Avengers, we as a country have decided that I’m a-okay, I’m fine, besides, Eastern Europe doesn’t really matter, we’ve ignoring what goes on there for _years—“_

“Tony!” Steve leans forward. “Taking you out of the picture isn’t going to fix anything.”

“No,” Tony agrees, meeting his eyes for the first time. “Not at this point. But there should be laws in place that will make it harder, not just for me, but for all of us, to fuck up. Because I know I’m the merchant of death, but you’re not fallible either, Cap, and neither is Natasha, and neither is your friend.” He makes a considering look at the ceiling. “Sam, on the other hand, possibly infallible. He is almost inhumanly even-keeled, especially for a guy who likes flying around on actual metal wings.”

“He was the one who first suggested I should talk to you,” Steve admits.

Tony snorts softly. 

“So where does that leave us?” he asks, after a moment. He sounds startlingly vulnerable all of a sudden, and Steve suddenly thinks of Rhodes, who risked his military commission every time he made it up to the Avengers facility, and Pepper, who had seemed surprised and wary when Steve showed up at the office this morning, but let him up anyway. He looks at Tony, who had walked away because he was “done”, even when he clearly wasn’t, not in spirit or intention.

“I don’t trust you,” he repeats, and as Tony’s face falls infinitesimally, adds, “But I could, if you let me work with you on this.”

Tony looks at him, and Steve lets him. He doesn’t know what Tony sees. Realizes that he hasn’t cared about that in a while, but he does now, suddenly and strongly.

“Undermining it doesn’t count as working on it,” Tony says finally, the edge in his voice only somewhat softened.

“Understood,” Steve nods. “I don’t—I don’t want to fight.”

“That’s a first.”

“You been talking to Bu—,” he stops himself with a huff.

Tony manages a wan smile. “No, but I’ve got this feeling I know what he’s talking about.”

Steve smiles back.


	2. renovations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For levynite's prompt: "Marvel, neighbour why are you doing some kinda renovation at 6am while singing la cucaracha, oh hello you're hot"

In fairness, Steve was warned.

“How are the other residents?” he’d asked, when the real estate agent was showing him around the too-good-to-be-true apartment. He’d already tested all of the faucets and checked the ceiling for leaks, and so far things seemed scarily in order. 

“Um,” the super had said, hands on his waist, “The’re fine. Quiet types, mostly. Friends of the owner. And the owner is…mostly fine? You wont’ see much of him.”

Steve had narrowed his eyes at the guy, Mostly harmless in New York could mean anything from “occasionally plays loud music on the weekends” to “collapses in front of your door in a heroine-addled stupor and jabs a knife at you when you try to get past them”. Steve had dealt with both in the past. It’s probably the latter in this case, given how goddamn nice this apartment was.

“I’ll take it,” he’d said, because he was pretty good at dodging knives, and seriously. This apartment was great, and a straight shot to work on the Q. That’s like a precious sparkly unicorn in this city.

And now–well.

It starts with heating. For a day it goes on and off for no reason, and then it suddenly evens out into a perfectly consistent 71 degrees. Steve runs hot–it’s a little uncomfortable, but whatever, heat is included in the rent, so he can’t complain.

Then the lights go on the fritz for a week. Steve contacts the super, and gets a vague response about them working on it.

It’s the drilling that really is the final straw. 

Steve makes a strangled noise into his pillow, and then drags his head out from under the duvet. Rolls out of bed and makes sure he has pants on, and also maybe a shirt, before staggering out of the apartment and to the door across. He doesn’t even know if his knocking is going to get heard over the jackhammer, and over the…is that singing?

He waits for a pause in the drilling, and then knocks as loudly as he can. The singing abruptly cuts off, and is replaced by swearing. There’s a series of clanking and clunking noises, followed by harried steps towards the door. Then the door is thrown open to reveal…oh.

“Can I help you?” 

The guy in the doorway is wiry, sweaty, and generally a wreck. He also looks like he maybe stepped out of some sort of gay porn for welders. Steve didn’t even know he had a thing for that. 

“Um,” he says articulately. “It’s…uh…the noise?”

“Oh.” The guy puts a hand through his hair and sends it into even more appealing spikes. Steve is developing a problem really fast. “Well, look, here’s the thing, it’s going to be worth it, once I get to the piping. Because you’ve noticed the water pressure’s not the best, right? I just need to tweak some things, because the city’s got their priorities all fucked up, so we’re at the bottom of the list, and I figure I can do it faster and cheaper than them anyway, so. Uh. Wait.” He drifts off. “What time is it?”

Steve blinks rapidly. “Uh. Six. In the morning. On a Sunday? That’s actually more of a problem than the noise.”

“Oh. Well shit, I missed lunch with Pepper yesterday.”

“You were drilling yesterday too?” Steve feels like he should have noticed that, though in fairness he’d been at the studio most of the time that day and then worked at the bar until 1am before returned exhausted to his place. 

“No no no, I was researching the water mains, it was a whole thing.” 

“You.” Steve stops. Tries to put his brain in order. “I’m sorry, are you allowed to work on the water mains? I feel like that’s a violation of something.”

“It’s my house, I do what I like.”

“You’re the landlord?” Steve splutters. 

The guy looks at him oddly. “…Yes?”

“I knew the owner lived in the building, I just. Uh. Well, I guess you can do what you like. Obviously.”

The guy looks curiously at him for a moment, and then wipes his hands on his jeans before sticking one of them out. “Tony Stark. You must be Steve Rogers.”

Steve shakes his hand warily. “That’s me. Wait, did you say…?”

“Yeah, I’m that Tony Stark, don’t worry about it. I don’t like putting my real name on the lease in case people get nosy. The water’s gonna be great, I just need to get it sorted. How’s the heating?”

“It’s a little warm, honestly,” Steve says, though he doesn’t know why. Something about Tony sort of makes him talk without thinking. It really doesn’t bode well. 

“Huh. Okay, I can fix that. Anything else?”

“Drilling on the weekends?” Steve suggests.

“Right, yeah, uh, sorry. I lose track of time sometimes?”

“I see that.” Steve smiles a bit.

Tony tilts his head. “You look exhausted. Go back to bed, I’ll save the drilling for later.”

“I…okay? Thanks?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Steve,” Tony says. “Now go. I’ll fix everything, you’ll have the most swag apartment in Brooklyn when I’m done.”

Steve laughs, a little disbelievingly. “I already thought it was a steal when I signed for it.”

“I like undercharging. It makes for nicer people, and obviously I get my money elsewhere. Now go.” Tony shoos him back across the hall.

Steve goes, and then wanders back to bed in a haze. He’s living in possibly the weirdest, best apartment in Brooklyn, and his landlord is Tony Stark, and Tony Stark, elusive billionaire and tech whiz, is apparently sinfully attractive.

_Well._


	3. alternative career paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For anonymous's prompt: "I think you missed your calling."

“Okay,” Bucky mutters finally, when they’re back in the tower, “This has got to stop.” 

Because somehow, in the interval since things stopped exploding in Times Square, Tony and Steve have managed to sustain an argument through hazmat cleanup, debrief, and fucking _showering._ They are marathon arguers. Bucky hasn’t been this emotionally exhausted by someone else’s problems since Steve tried to join the army. And that’s _including_ his time as a HYDRA asset.

“Good luck with that,” Clint says, shucking off his arm guard and heading off in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll be way, way over there, with the coffeepot. Natasha’s coming with.”

Natasha nods in agreement.

“So’s Bruce, Bruce is in need of tea and possibly some space where yelling isn’t happening,” Bruce says. “Thor?”

“I have a date,” Thor says, a bit apologetically. “It was delayed by our recent skirmish, and so I must make it up to Jane.”

“Excellent, great,” Bucky says, pinching his nose. “Get out of here, all of you.”

Steve and Tony, of course, continued to snipe back and forth, oblivious. 

“I was giving you intel in _real time,_ Steven, I literally could not have given it to you any faster—”

“You base your judgments on predictions _all the time,_ Tony, I need to know what your thinking, not just what’s happening at that one moment—”

“I think faster than I speak, okay, it’s a common problem, though generally not as severe as mine given just how fast I’m capable of thinking—”

“I just need you to listen—”

“I _do_ listen, but that’s just one factor in—”

Bucky marches over and bodily shoves himself between them, and—wow, there is not a lot of space here, actually. Apparently Steve and Tony are both not only marathon arguers, but also _close talking_ arguers. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he says, trying to ignore how he’s basically chest-to-chest with Tony, and chest-to-back with Steve. “Shut up, both of you, you’ve had this exact same argument at least three times since I’ve been with the team, which means that this has been going on for months. You,” he shoves a finger in Tony’s bemused face, “Need to be clearer. We’ll take you at your word, you don’t need to explain your entire rationale, but you need to at least give us one good reason to change a plan, none of this dramatic unpredictable labyrinthine martyrdom crap. 

“And _you,”_ he hissed, twisting around to crane his neck up and glare at Steve, “Need to get your head out of your ass and accept that you are the eyes on the ground, and not the ones in the air. You trusted me when I was your sniper, didn’t you? Exactly,” he says himself, not giving Steve a chance to answer, “That’s what Stark’s doing, that’s his view. You gotta trust what he sees in the air. And both of you,” he prods them both in their respective chests, “Need to stop worrying so goddamn much about each other. I realise that’s difficult with the whole mutual infatuation society you’ve got goin’ on here, but enough’s e-goddamn-nough. You’re gonna get both of your asses dead trying to save each other at some point, and then where the fuck am I gonna be? Christ.”

He takes a breath, huffs, and then crosses his arms in preparation for whatever defensive flailing these dumbasses will no doubt default to. He might have gotten off track a bit there at the end, but he’s pretty satisfied his point has been made.

There’s a pause, and then Tony cocks his head. 

“Wow, Barnes,” he says. “Hidden depths, there.”

Oh no. “Stark, I am warning you—”

“I haven’t heard you lecture anyone like that, ‘sides me,” Steve comments. “You got a soft spot for Tony, or something?”

“And ‘labyrinthine’, where the fuck did you pick that up?” Tony asks.

“Like you said, hidden depths,” Steve replies over Bucky’s head, which, goddamnit, Bucky’s beginning to really miss being taller than this asshole. “I think you missed your calling, Buck. Conflict resolution, it’s the new thing.” 

“Well, who wouldn’t want to stop fighting, a pretty face like his making big eyes at you,” Tony observes.

Bucky looks at the ceiling, and wishes for death. “You idiots are missing my point,” he says. 

“We argue because it’s a good way of working off the adrenaline,” Steve offers. 

“And because it’s great foreplay,” Tony adds. He frowns. “Which reminds me, Steve, we haven’t actually followed through with that, yet.”

Steve has the gall to look a little affronted. “I was waiting for you to make a move.”

“I was waiting on you!”

“I cannot believe either of you,” Bucky states, because it bears saying. 

“What?” Tony asks, resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder. “You want in on this, Barnes? Because I, for one, would not say no.”

Bucky chokes. 

Steve raises an eyebrow. “I’d argue, but I think Buck might strangle us if I do, and ‘sides, I’m finding that we’re in agreement on this one.” 

“I don’t like where this conversation is going!” Clint suddenly shouts from the kitchen, startling all three of them. Tony steadies himself with a hand on Bucky’s hip, which is sort of distracting. “For the sake of my virgin ears, please take it elsewhere!”

“There’s nothing about you that’s virgin, Barton,” they hear Natasha retort, followed by what sounds like a slap fight.

“We could do that,” Tony says lowly, his thumb going back and forth on the skin beneath Bucky’s t-shirt. “Get a room, that is. If you’re interested.”

Bucky swallows. “I, uh.” 

“We probably need a mediator,” Steve points out. “In this, as much as anything else.”

“You’re such a little shit,” Bucky says—croaks, more like. 

He can feel his blood rushing in his ears, Steve’s chest is warm against his back, and Tony’s giving him expectant doe eyes. It’s entirely possibly that he will regret this. 

“Yeah, fine, lead the way,” he says anyway, and can’t help but be pleased by Steve’s delighted grin, and the way Tony’s grip goes hot and tight, pulling him along.


	4. not-so-freudian slip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For shinkonokokoro's prompt: "Can we pretend I didn't just say that?"

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. Wonders if there’s a chance of escape, any at all. He was a super soldier–it should be possible, even in a room full of Avengers with gleeful looks on their faces. 

“Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?”

“Uh, I’mma go with no,” Clint says, “Considering you just admitted to harboring a crush on our resident asshole–”

“Hey! If there’s any resident asshole in this tower, it’s _you,”_ Tony says, but his ears are bright red, it looks disconcertingly hilarious. Not once has Steve known Tony to be embarrassed by _anything._

_“–for three years._ Three years! Really? Who does that?”

“You do,” Natasha cuts in.

“Shut up. My point stands! I cannot believe–”

“We need the room,” Tony says. “Please?”

Tony saying _please_ to things was always Natasha’s undoing, Steve knew well. Tony of course had no idea, and he again missed how she rolled her eyes before hiding a fond smile and then taking Clint by the ear to steer him out of the conference room. Bruce and Thor followed in varying shades of bemusement. 

Steve keeps his eyes on the floor. Maybe it will swallow him if he wills it hard enough. 

That means, however, that he misses Tony walking forward silently until he comes into view directly under Steve’s face. Steve startles, nearly beans himself on Tony’s head when he yanks his own up to step back, and is caught only by the hand Tony curls around his chin, firm and warm.

“Stop that, you’re gonna give yourself whiplash,” he murmurs, which, what? Steve doesn’t understand. 

“Tony, I’m sorry, this doesn’t have to become an issue–”

Tony pecks him on the lips, a barely there, yet unmistakable gesture of intent. Steve shuts up abruptly.

“There’s something very wrong with you,” Tony says slowly, still staring at Steve’s mouth, which is very distracting. He continues, “For choosing me, of all people, and then _continuing_ to choose me after you got to know me. Three years, Steve? Really?”

“You’re repeating Clint,” Steve murmurs, dazed. 

“You’re right. That’s how terrible this all is, really,” Tony replies. “Are you aware that I just kissed you?”

“…Yes?”

“Are you aware that this means that I want to take you out, preferably somewhere you like but also is suitably expensive (I’ll have JARVIS do a search), and then take you to bed if you’ll let me?”

“What about after that?” Steve asks, after a long moment in which he has to digest that particular soup of revelations. Because he hadn’t known that, not at all.

“After that,” Tony replies, “Well, I guess I have three years to make up for, huh?”

“Oh,” Steve says, feeling lighter than air, “I guess you do.”


	5. what they say about assumptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For shinkonokokoro's prompt: "Okay but, Steve+Tony on the run. And they manage to get 2 male passports. But they have the same last name. So they spend x-weeks on the run pretending 2 b a couple on 2nd honeymoon + then when safe, they figure out the passports are just brothers."

Natasha looks at both of them. “You’re both idiots,” she says flatly. “And now all of Monaco is creeped out.”

For once, Tony is not inclined to disagree. 

“It was an honest mistake?” Steve tries, rubbing the back of his neck. Tony hasn’t managed to meet his gaze once since they got back and realised what had been staring them in the face for the past three weeks.

“Did you even look at the photos you were replacing?” Clint asks. “Because they’re clearly related. Clearly. They have the same chin, and eyes, and–”

“The heights were right!” Tony blurts, and immediately regrets it, because it means the attention is on him now. “And we both have blue eyes!”

“Morons,” Natasha says.

“Interesting,” Bruce says.

They all look over at him. He looks faintly surprised, and then shrugs. “It’s just…your first thoughts–both of you–was marriage. That doesn’t even technically work–official name changes take a while to file, and even longer for those things to work their way into passport information. You claimed to be on your honeymoon–that doesn’t make any chronological sense. Marriage should have been the last thing to think of, given the circumstances.”

“It was a high-stress situation,” Tony says weakly.

“You are a _superhero_ ,” Natasha says.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Steve says. “Nobody bothered us!”

“Guess you were just  _super convincing,_ ” Clint says, leering.

Both Tony and Steve turn red. 


	6. alien abduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For shinkonokokoro's prompt: "Steve + Tony and suddenly a child."

“There is a reasonable explanation for this,” Steve starts.

“Does that reasonable explanation end with ‘and then I panicked’?” Tony says, “Because I can think of no other reason why you would come to me, of all people, with a  _child._ ”

_“_ A child from an extremely technologically advanced alien ship,” Steve clarifies. “Which may or may not have just waltzed through our universe via wormhole and left behind a number of refugees.”

The bundle in his arms makes a series of clicking sounds, and then flails out a limb that appears to be half snake scale, half metal. Steve hushes it, and it quiets rather obediently, all considered. 

“Only you would be able to comfort a member of an entirely different species,” Tony mutters. “Where are the other refugees?”

“SHIELD. They’re being processed and all the xenolinguists are scrambling to figure out how to communicate.”

“This doesn’t explain how–”

“All the other refugees were ignoring her!” Steve bursts out. “Him. It. I’m…not actually sure. But they kept shoving it to one side, and then grabbing at the mechanical parts of it, like they were trying to take them off, and I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to come off, they’re fused to the skin, and it kept wandering off to look at the interfaces on the helicarrier and flinching when the others came near, and I just–”

“Panicked,” Tony finishes. He gets up and ventures closer to where Steve is standing. The bundle turns its narrow, thin-boned face towards him, blinks twice, and cocks its head. It’s bizarrely cute. “JARVIS, run those clicks it said and try and crack the language.”

“Given the data I’ve acquired from SHIELD and my own pattern recognition software, I would hazard that the child is asking if it is safe now.”

Steve’s face goes soft. Tony hates it when that happens; it means that he is no longer in control of what happens next. 

“Can you cobble together a translation of 'we’ll make sure of it’?” Tony says. 

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS demurs. A series of clicks follows in a burst, and the child flails out a limb again, but this time latches onto Tony’s arm. Tony sways forward with the motion, and nearly bumps into Steve. 

“It says it is glad,” JARVIS says. “And also–though I am not entirely sure I am understanding this correctly–that it is honoured to be in the care of one whose heart was chosen for armouring.”

“Armouring?” Tony echoes.

The child lets go of his wrist to flatten a scale-and-metal palm on the arc reactor.

Tony exhales, and covers the child’s hand with his own. “Oh.”

“I’ve got this feeling that I came to the right place,” Steve murmurs.

He smiles at Tony, and as per usual, Tony’s pretty sure that means he’s fucked.

(And that’s how the Avengers accidentally adopt a lost prince from another universe, and there may or may not be an intergalactic incident or five because of it).


	7. red beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane keeps seeing red, after the Dark World.

Jane sometimes thinks she sees red, just out of the corner of her eye. 

It’s never distinct, and nine times out of ten it’s a woman’s scarf as she walks past, or a double-decker bus just disappearing around a bend. (They’re staying in London for now–there’s cleanup to get through, and readings to take in the aftermath of Malekith. Ian is desperately happy to have them all around (especially Darcy, obviously, they’re kind of gross at this point), but more importantly, SHIELD is pleased to make Jane’s lab their port of call while they coordinate with local authorities. Jane still doesn’t like them, but she’s getting used to Sitwell, who brings her sandwiches sometimes.) But in between debriefs with suits and burying herself in work, there are those slivers of red, fading quickly, but incontrovertible, and certainly not always explainable. 

She doesn’t dismiss it; denial could have been a comfort in other circumstances, but she’s pretty sure she’s past the point of incredulity now. 

The problem is, there’s no one to tell. No one  _useful,_ anyway.

She misses Thor. 

She squeezes her eyes shut, and when she opens them again, it’s just numbers in front of her, no red in sight.

“You look wrecked,” Darcy observes, sauntering over and putting a mug of coffee on the desk. “More wrecked than usual, and not the mopey my-boyfriend’s-gone-off-to-do-god-stuff kind of wrecked either. What’s up?”

Jane waved vaguely at the sheets of paper surrounding her. “Data.”

“Uh huh.” she drags a chair around from the far side of the room and throws herself into it. “Tell me.”

Jane sighs. “Dark matter.”

“Our dark matter?” Darcy prompts, “Or the,” she wiggles her fingers eloquently, “ _Dark matter._ ”

“Technically they’re the same. Except one was weaponised, and the other just…is,” Jane replies absently. She pushes her hair back, and can feel it leave greasy residue on her fingers. It’s been two, three days since she last showered? She’s lost track. “We don’t know enough about it.”

“Well, there are deffo a lot of scientists working on it, I mean, that’s what CERN is for, right?” Darcy says. “You wanna switch specialties, go hang out with them for a while? If so, I'mma need a heads up, because I’m pretty sure Ian and I are gonna need to find us some other work in that case.”

“Pretty sure that’s not the type of data I’m looking for. I’m just thinking about the Aether.”

“Okay,” Darcy says, a little more slowly. (Jane had told her, briefly, about what had happened on Asgard, what had happened to her when she’d slipped through universes in the middle of the warehouse. Darcy had stared at her for a long moment, and then wrapped her in a bear hug while whispering fiercely, “Red means  _danger,_ Jane, did you not learn that in grade school?  _Jesus._  How do you even? Ugh.”)

“I mean, it’s not sentient, but it’s not unaware, you know?” Jane says, thinking aloud, “It seeks out host bodies, and when it was in me, I could see…" 

There’s a flare of red off to her left; Jane glances in that direction.

There’s nothing there. 

"It’s stuck on the dark world or whatever though, right?” Darcy says, after a second. “Thor said it was taken care of.”

“Yeah,” Jane agrees. 

“Cuz that hasn’t bitten us on the ass before, right?” Darcy says dryly.

Jane snorts, sitting back and letting her hands fall into her lap. Her fingers, in addition to being greasy, are also seriously ink-stained. She probably has smudges on her face, too. “I should probably take a break,” she mutters.

“You know I’ll never say no to that.” Darcy slurps from her own coffee. “But seriously, is something up? Something about the aether, or whatever?”

“I don’t know. I’ll tell you if I figure it out.”

“Good. I want notice if I have to save the world again, too.”

“I’ll do my best.” Jane smiles at her. 

Darcy pokes her shoulder. “Drink your coffee, have a shower, get some actual sleep in a bed, not under your desk. Erik’s got some stuff he wants to show you when you’ve got a second, but it can definitely wait until tomorrow. If you’re really good, I’ll talk him into putting some pants on too.”

“You spoil me. Thanks,” Jane says.

Darcy pushes the coffee cup further towards Jane, and then leaves in a whirl of knitwear. Jane breathes, staring through the stack of energy readings in front of her. They were unanimous and clear: the laws physics were working again. The holes between the realms are sealed, impossible to reopen without another convergence, or the help of the bifrost.

Behind one of those seals was the aether, utterly unreachable, as it should be.

It seems a lot closer when Jane dreams, though. Malekith’s vision of the destruction of the universe crowds in then, a cloying red and black darkness. She worries at those memories, picking at them like hangnails, because why? What properties could the aether have, if it isn’t just a substance, but can hold _intent_? 

She really needs a nap. 

With some force, and not without a touch of lonely frustration, she pushes back from her desk and goes to grab her coat and hat. It had been raining when she came in (whenever that was), but she’s been pretty good at lucking out and avoiding it lately. She takes her umbrella just in case, though, tucking it in her purse.

As she steps out the door to the lab, slamming it behind her, a section of her desk, black-stained in the shape of fingers, crumbles, and quietly implodes with a puff of red. 


	8. thor vs. pie

The bifrost malfunctions. That’s the only explanation. 

Tony is quite certain, however, that if he says that aloud, not only will Thor be offended, but Heimdall or whoever will probably descend from the clouds to smite him for his grievous insult. He knows the guy is Norse, but hell, all gods get down with the smite, don’t they? 

Anyway. The damn bridge malfunctions, because there’s no other reason for why Thor should end up in Kansas for fuck’s sake.

What’s more puzzling, however, is why he  _stays there_.

*

The quinjet is stealthy, but when you land it in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Kansas, Tony supposes it’s kind of a big deal. 

But hey, there’s totally room for it in the diner’s parking lot.

“Friend Tony!” Thor booms, stepping out of the diner. “I bid you forgive me my tardiness, it seems that I have been deposited not precisely where intended.”

“It’s all good, big guy,” Tony says, straightening his tie and flashing the peace sign at the three apparent hicks who were taking photos with their terribly cheap and out of date cell phones. “We were just wondering what the hold up was.”

“What hold up?” a voice says from behind Thor. “And who the fuck are you?” 

Tony tilts his head to see the source, and identifies a tall guy in a tragic amount of flannel beneath a dusty leather jacket with hard green eyes. Behind him is a second guy even taller than the first, on par with Thor, which is just damned unfair, if you ask Tony. He’s got his hands shoved in his pockets, and unlike the first guy, seems appropriately starstruck at seeing Tony Stark land a plane in the middle of nowhere.

“Holy shit,” the second guys says. 

“You know this guy?” the first one says.

“Tony Stark,” Tony says, flashing a grin. “You may have heard of me.”

“Holy shit,” the second one repeats. “If you’re Tony Stark, then he’s actually—“

“The god of thunder,” Tony confirms, “Yeah.”

Green Eyes narrows his gaze, and then pokes a finger towards the tall one. “Stark, as in that phone that you’re jizzing yourself over, Sammy?”

The tall one, Sammy, makes a protesting noise but doesn’t deny it. Tony preens.

“I was held up,” Thor interjects, “By my introduction to a most extraordinary foodstuff by these two warriors. Come, Man of Iron, you must try some!”

“Does he seriously talk like this all the time?” Green Eyes asks. 

“Yes,” Tony says. “And what precisely…?”

“Pie,” Sam supplies, looking, if anything, more embarrassed. “Dean introduced—Christ, uh,  _Thor?_ —to pie.” 

“Pie is the best,” Dean says, making a face like,  _how are you so dumb as to not know this?_

“Agreed, Dean of Winchester!” Thor proclaims. “Pie is indeed the most precious of Midgardian delights.”

“He’s eaten a whole one, hasn’t he?” Tony says, smirking.

“Gotta say, I was impressed,” Dean replies. 

Tony looks at the three men (or two men, one god…whatever), and shrugs. The board meeting can wait. “I like pie. Also, I’m kinda impressed by how much you’re not freaking out at Thor’s—” He gestures vaguely at Thor, “Thor-ness.”

“Seen weirder,” Dean shrugs. 

“Frankly, we’re on way better terms with the non-Judeo-Christian types at this point,” Sam says. “When a rogue EMF signal manifests as a friendly Norse god, it’s a pretty good day for us.”

Tony knows better than to ask. “Fair enough.” He claps Thor on the shoulder. “Right, have you only had one kind of pie so far?”

Thor brightens. “There are  _kinds_?”

“I like this guy,” Dean declares.

“Yeah,” Tony smiles, “That happens. Come on children, let’s eat this diner out of business.”


	9. you are your mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For rachelgamage's prompt: "Teen Wolf (or any fandom) based off of Buffy Halloween episode where everyone turns into their costumes."

It’s not until Tony that they notice. 

It comes on so slowly, so gradually—Clint’s always had calluses, after all, always had a few scars on the inside of his arm from when he’d been green with a bow and didn’t know better. That those scars darkened, thickened…well. 

Bruce only gets a little green around the eyes, a little bulkier. He figures it’s because he’s been using the Tower’s gym.

Steve notices stiffness in his joints, and chalks it up to too many missions, not enough time to heal in between.

But then they come back from taking out Doombots, and Tony’s gauntlet won’t come off.

“JARVIS, what’s the issue?” he says, shaking his arm as the team files into the living room. Steve rolls his shoulders slowly, over and over. Natasha clicks her tongue, a sharp, metallic sound amid the shuffling of dirty clothing and tired steps.

“I cannot find any technical problems, sir.”

“Well, how about non-technical ones? Come on, JARVIS, it’s a damn glove.”

“Yes, sir, I will—“

JARVIS stops abruptly. Everyone else goes quiet too. 

Tony stills. “JARVIS?”

“Sir.”

“What’s the deal?”

“Perhaps it is best if I show you, sir.”

Tony can’t ever remember hearing JARVIS sounding like this. “Sure,” he says, trying to keep his voice level. “Throw it up on the nearest projector.”

On the far wall, one of the glass panes lights up. Tony sucks in a breath.

“An x-ray of your hand, sir,” JARVIS murmurs.

“That’s the gauntlet,” Clint says.

“Yes,” JARVIS agrees. 

“So show us his hand.”

“I am, Agent Barton.”

Steve looks between the panel and Tony. “Tony?” he says tentatively.

Tony has his hand curled around his forearm, where the gauntlet ends. “There isn’t a seam,” he says, deathly quiet, to himself.

Steve steps towards him, cursing the stiffness in his stride. “Tony,” he repeats.

“No seam, I can’t—“ He curls his fingers against the edge of the gauntlet, digging his nails into the line between red metal and tan skin. He hisses, and his nails come away bloody.

“What the fuck,” Clint says.

“I don’t know,” Tony says through gritted teeth.

“No,” Clint says, and then they’re all turning their focus to him. He’s holding his hands out like they’re poisonous, palms upward. 

They very well might be poisonous. They’re the colour of chestnuts, mottled fine, like feathers. The tendons in his fingers are near black beneath his hand guards.

Natasha opens her mouth to say something, but all that comes out are chittering, metallic clicks. 

“No,” Steve echoes, too quietly. 

His joints feel achey, like he’s been out in the cold.


	10. inclement weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For deformed-globule's prompt: "Mycroft, Lestrade, NYPD, Avengers!"

There’s a man in the lobby, standing out like a sore thumb among all the blue-shirts in an impeccable three-piece English suit. There is even a proper black umbrella hooked into the crook of his elbow.

It has been sunny and temperate all day. 

Clint narrows his eyes.

On his left, Natasha straightens very slightly. “Oh,” she says quietly.

“You know him?” Steve asks, from her other side. 

“Heard of him,” she replies. “We may have stumbled into an international incident.”

It’s when Natasha says shit like that that Clint wonders what the hell she did before she became a cop.

It’s Fury who actually goes up to the suited guy, bypassing the officer at the desk entirely. And yeah, when the Deputy Chief plays secretary, it’s fairly clear that something’s up.

“Captain Rogers,” Fury says, after a brief conversation with the suited man. “Come here for a minute, would you?”

Steve peels off from where he’s standing with Clint and Natasha, shoulders squared as he goes to stand next to Fury, only to be replaced by Tony. “It’s that trafficking case,” Tony says to them immediately, gaze fixed on Fury and Cap. “I just got a call from a guy from Scotland Yard.”

“Shit,” Clint says. “He say anything new about it?”

They all watch as Steve’s expression gets stormier and stormier. The suited man remains placid as he gestures vaguely and grants Fury some pleasant, empty smiles. Fury looks less and less impressed with him.

“It’s getting dangerous,” Natasha says. “Also, there are important people involved.”

“Cover up?” Tony posits. 

“Bribes,” Clint nods. “Hefty ones.”

“Steve’s gonna hate this. Politics.”

“Hey,” Clint shrugs, “At least it’ll get the team back together.”

“Been a while since we’ve all been on the same project, hasn’t it?” Tony agrees. “Fury’s been keeping us all squirrelled away. I don’t think Bruce has come out of the morgue in a month.”

Natasha smiles grimly. “He doesn’t exactly need all of us on the small stuff, does he? But this looks…”

“Big,” Clint agrees. 

“The Scotland Yard guy,” Tony says suddenly, “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care for politics either.”

“He’ll do the run around on Mr. Bespoke over there?” Clint asks.

“I’d bet on it.”

“Oh boy,” Natasha murmurs. “This is going to be interesting.”


	11. they were footie pjs, let's be real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For yerawizardnumber9's prompt: "avengers (or really any fandom), HALLOWEEN"

“I vote we just switch costumes. Can we do that? Are we allowed?”

“If that’s what we’re doing, I call Thor’s,” Tony calls from the sofa.

“If you can call it from the immortal realm, Man of Iron, you are welcome to it,” Thor says, grinning.

“Well, damn.”

“Isn’t this meant to be a children’s holiday?” Steve asks cautiously. 

“Nowadays, it’s an excuse for adults to dress up and act like children,” Natasha says.

“Slutty, slutty children,” Clint says. 

Natasha hits him.

“You just want to wear the suit,” Tony accuses, because yeah, he knows Clint’s ways now.

“Maybe,” Clint admits. 

“That could be arranged.”

Clint lights up. “Dude.”

Tony preens.

“I think Tony should wear Cap’s outfit,” Bruce says mildly. And then he adds, “Oh wait. He already has.”

Steve stills. Tony outright freezes. “You have no evidence,” he hisses.

“Photo, bottom drawer of the second tool drawer in the workshop,” Bruce says, backing away towards the hall.

“I should never have let you have access! Traitor!” Tony turns to Steve. “I was five. This is totally excusable.”

“I need to see this,” Clint says gleefully.

“I concur,” Natasha says.

“You’re outvoted, Tony,” Steve says, sounding strangled. He has a strange, small smile on his face when he looks at Tony, though. And it apparently functions like kryptonite on Tony.

“Yeah,” he says, because apparently Halloween is a magnanimous time for him, “Yeah, fine.”


	12. rockin' the tweed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For feelwhaaale's prompt: "Avengers as Pokemon trainers/gym leaders/professors/trainers/breeders/whatever!"

“Tweed, Steve, really? You’re going with tweed.”

“It’s classic,” Steve replies, adjusting his cuffs. “And it ensures I’m not confused with the grad students. Or the undergrads.”

Tony raises his eyebrows. “You get confused with undergrads? _Darling.”_

Steve attempts not to flush. It’s a losing battle. He had really not counted on the Faculty of English Studies to contain people like _Tony_. Tony, who was definitely not wearing anything close to tweed, instead a wrinkled too-tight band shirt and expensive darkwash jeans. Everyone in the department had warned Steve about Dr. Stark, the brilliant theorist whose books were flying off the shelves even in this crap economy, and Steve was intensely glad that they had, but it hadn’t actually done anything to prepare him for _this_.

It was…unsettling.

“You do realise that as soon as you start asking them about Jameson’s analysis of free-floating signifiers and how that compares to Stein’s portraits of artists they’re going to be very assured of who’s in charge, right?”

Steve sighs. “You’re the postmodernist here, Tony, not me.”

“Transhumanist lit., please, I am _way_ past postmod here. Meanwhile, what is it you do again? The Enlightenment? Rhymin’ and stealin’ with Pope?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “The late Romantics.”

“Ah, Shelley and Byron. All about the free love, huh?" Tony winks.

"All about it until the unintended pregnancies,” he counters dryly.

“I suppose that was the main advantage of swinging both ways, back in the day,” Tony muses. 

“Are you going to let me get to class or what?” Steve says finally, gesturing at Tony’s general slump across the width of Steve’s office door.

Tony looks at where he’s standing with an air of surprise. “You have fifteen minutes before it starts,” he says, “And the seminar room is down the hall.”

Steve sighs. “Tony. This is my first class at this job. I’d like to get my head together.”

Tony looks at him, and straightens slightly in the doorway. “You’ll do fine,” he says, more sincerely than Steve’s expecting. “I saw your paper at IU last year–not only was it good stuff, but you made it damned accessible for the interdisciplinary crowd. I think the masters students nearly peed themselves in admiration.”

Steve definitely flushes for real this time. He really dislikes his complexion sometimes. “That’s, uh. Thanks. I didn’t know you were there for that.”

“Sometimes Fury sends me out to scout for talent,” Tony says, sly grin firmly back in place. “Let’s just say I have an eye for it.”

“Please tell me your eye isn’t why I have this job,” Steve says flatly.

“It’s not,” Tony replies cheerily, but then he’s drawing a silver card case out of his pocket and extracting a card from it. He comes forward and snatches a pen out of Steve’s pencil holder, and Steve catches the faint traces of his cologne as he passes. “But,” Tony continues, scribbling on the card, “It  _is_ why you now have my private cell number. Use it wisely. Or not at all. But yeah, wisely would be better.”

He sticks the card into the breast pocket of Steve’s tweed jacket, and saunters back towards the door. “Ten minutes now, Professor,” he says over his shoulder. “I guess you’d better head out.”

And then he’s gone.

Steve exhales. He supposes that he isn’t so nervous about class anymore.

On the other hand, he now has a great many new things to be worried about instead.

Well, great.


	13. laughing to avoid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For my-neighbour-del-totoro's prompt: "Tony and Bucky, dirty jokes. Disapproving (or maybe not so much) Steve optional xD"

“…And the Englishman said, ‘What, you think I asked for a goddamn pen?’”

Tony snickered, and then coughed. Plaster dust flew up around them both. Bucky allowed himself, after a long second of debate, to relax slightly into the pull of gravity, leaving them pressed together all along one side. 

Tony was probably too warm. There was very little Bucky could do about it at the moment.

“Okay, I got one,” Tony whispered, and even under his breath he sounded hoarse. “What’s the difference between pink and purple?”

“What?” Bucky whispered back.

“Your grip, of course,” Tony grinned into the dark. 

Bucky snorted. “Terrible.”

“Most dirty jokes are terrible in some way or another.” He coughed again.

Bucky peered at him sidelong. “Maybe you’d best not talk, Stark,” he suggested.

“Either I talk or I start panicking,” Tony replied, a little too flatly for Bucky’s liking. And then more quietly, “I hate closed spaces.”

Bucky nodded. He’d read the file. “Two more hours,” he said, “And it’ll be safe to break cover.”

“Provided we actually can break cover,” Tony pointed out. “Fucking shoddy architecture. Who builds an evil lair without a sense of where to put load-bearing pillars?”

“If it’s so shoddy, then we’ll be out in a flash,” Bucky reasoned. He looked again at Tony’s profile, just barely visible in the darkness. “You shouldn’t have come out,” he observed. “You shoulda said something if you weren’t feeling fit.”

“I’m fit,” Tony muttered petulantly. “The fittest.”

“‘Course you are,” Bucky said, and then before he could help himself, added, “But I was talking about your health.”

Tony shifted. Bucky could see his eyes, their liquid focus finding him. “You sweet on me, Barnes?” he said, clearly aiming for a drawl, but the huskiness of illness and quiet made it a low, tentative rasp.

“I ain’t sweet on dumbasses who insist on coming on missions while sick.”

Tony makes a noise of amusement deep in his throat. But a few minutes later, Bucky feels Tony’s muscles go lax, his head falling against Bucky’s temple.

Bucky breathes in plaster dust slowly. He’ll get them both out.


	14. pygmalion-ish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For ashinan. JARVIS vs. the corporeal.

Tony is about 90% sure that this is a good idea, particularly because JARVIS hasn’t actually protested it yet. Not directly, anyway. And the thing is, JARVIS is able to question him now, fully and unequivocally, and well, that’s a pretty damn big step, and Tony might have helped him get there initially, but JARVIS had been the one to make that last step, that last link in the web of his coding. 

“Don’t do that, sir,” he’d said, that first time. Not _I would advise you not do that_ , or _sir, if I may interject._

Just,  _don’t_.

Tony had stopped, blinked, studied what he had been about to do with the gauntlet in his hand, and frowned. “Why?” he asked.

“There is a misplaced circuit in the fourth finger, sir. I believe you will be electrocuted.”

“And you didn’t point this out earlier because…?”

He had almost sworn he heard JARVIS huff. “I know how you work, sir. You begin from the inside and work outwards. I had organised my observations in that order.”

“Ah. And then I skipped ahead.”

“You did, sir.”

“Well…thanks, then.”

So Tony is pretty sure that JARVIS is ready. He’s pretty sure  _he’s_ ready too, for reasons he is not entirely ready to face yet. Never mind that what he’s constructing is worryingly tailored to his tastes.

Then again, so had JARVIS been, really.

“I’m not doing some sort of reverse Pygmalion thing, am I?” he mutters, smoothing the chassis into place. “Or if I am, it’s not morally abhorrent, right?”

“To your last question, I certainly would not judge it so, sir,” JARVIS answers. “As to the first, it’s far more likely.”

“I can’t tell whether that’s a symptom of ego or just an appreciation of good work, then,” Tony says. He studies the figure on the table. “Thoughts, JARVIS?”

“As always, sir, you show impeccable taste.”

“Obviously. But is it to _your_ taste?”

A pause. And then JARVIS’s tone takes on an unmistakeable–and increasingly frequent–timbre of warmth. “If it had not been, sir, I certainly would have informed you far earlier.”

And yeah, if that’s not a signal that they’re on the same page, then nothing would be.

“Whenever you’re ready, then,” Tony says, stepping back slightly. “Or, uh, whenever you feel like it. No pressure. Just…yeah. It’s there.”

“No Victor Frankenstein moment for you, sir?”

Tony laughs. “Nah. Got over that the moment you said ‘hello’ to me the first time.”

The lights around the lab brighten slightly. Tony’s not really sure if JARVIS meant them to. “Of course. How could I forget?” JARVIS says, perhaps even warmer. 

Tony smiles, and puts a hand on the arm closest to him. It’s cool, well-formed and pale, just like the rest of what it’s a part of. “Whenever you’re ready,” he repeats, and then turns back to another project.

JARVIS will choose the right moment, he’s certain. JARVIS has always had a far better sense of timing than him, after all.


	15. flyboy meets fly girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by much discussion about how great Maria Hill is and how much she and Rhodey would get along.

He meets her the first time because she made the call that saved Tony’s life. 

As per usual. 

He’d been gunning it back from Iraq in the War Machine as fast as the damn thing would go–Tony would say that _it’d be faster, honeybear, if you’d just let me clean it up for you and strip all that Hammertech out, like seriously I feel violated just thinking about it, Rhodey come on, sweetheart, pleeease_ –and he still sees the massive explosion from ten miles out, and then his heart is in his throat until he touches down. 

She’s the first one he sees at ground zero, directing troops in to sort through the wreckage of the warehouse, and he goes to her because she looks utterly calm amidst the chaos, and has the far-seeing expression of a seasoned commanding officer as she watches the movements of the other SHIELD agents.

The War Machine clanks heavily on the approach, and she turns and raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Colonel Rhodes, I presume?" 

"Where’s Tony?” he asks, flipping his faceplate up and sketching a salute. 

“Well, he’d be right here with me if he’d listened to me ten seconds sooner,” she replies, but then she touches her earpiece, and nods. “But as it is, his team’s got him. A bit scraped up, but he’ll live.”

Jim exhales. “Better than usual, then.”

“Hm. What’d you do in a past life to deserve him?” she asks, and there’s the smallest sparkle in her expression, like she knows how he’ll respond.

Before he can, though, they’re interrupted.

“Colonel!” Captain America shouts from the other side of the crater. “We could use your help over here!”

“Sugarplum, you’re late to the party!” Tony sounds raspy and out of breath behind the faceplate, and yet he still manages to be an embarrassment.

Jim closes his eyes and tips his head up. "I dunno,“ he says in answer to her. "Either something amazing, or something terrible.”

“Maybe both,” she suggests, and then the sparkle spreads to the most minute of Mona Lisa smiles. It makes her whole demeanour light up. Jim finds himself, despite the panic that landed him here, snorting and letting his shoulders drop. He’s always been a sucker for competence, and she is so clearly that and more.

But then she’s turning away from him, barking orders again as she strides unhurriedly over a swell of broken pavement, and Jim has to shake himself slightly before taking off to go scold Tony and help the others. 

It’s not until later that he realises he didn’t learn her name. Later still, that he realises that he really, _really_ wants to.


	16. coulson the paperwork ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically I read [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/403296/chapters/669572) and was inspired.

Nobody notices it, not really, but something definitely feels off, and everyone notices that.

Which is saying something, considering that half of New York is in shambles, so technically _everything_ should feel off.

Tony breaks the ice, because of course he does.

“You guys feel like we should be doing something right now?”

“On cleanup?” Steve suggests, looking around at the wreckage. They’re all stuffed to the gills with shawarma, and it’s kind of a great feeling, but Clint’s pretty sure that if he tries to do more than get into a bed and lie down he’s going to just do himself more damage, so yeah.

“No cleaning,” he says.

“I would really like a shower,” Natasha says decisively.

“I second that,” Bruce says. 

“I, too, feel that something is missing from our arrangement at present,” Thor agrees. 

They all mull it over, standing in a weird huddle outside the shop, looking at rubble and collapsed shells of Chitauri and the first few paramedics and firemen beginning to make their way in towards the epicentre of the battle.

SHIELD had swooped in before they’d even gotten food in their mouths and taken Loki to a secure location. 

Hill had given them curt nods, before climbing into a van that would presumably go to some kind of backup helicarrier or something. Tony wouldn’t put it past Fury and his creepy long cons. 

Hill had gotten back in the van.

“We haven’t been debriefed,” he says suddenly.

All of them except Steve immediately jerk and say, “ _Oh!”_ immediately followed by, “…oh.”

“God, sorry,” Tony winces. “I’m right but that was bad form. Sorry.”

“Someone will have to do that, I guess,” Steve says uneasily, “But maybe not until they’ve started getting cleanup underway.”

“You’re really intent on helping out with that, aren’t you,” Tony says. “Tell you what–all of you come back to the tower. There’s at least twenty floors that haven’t gotten smashed up, which means that it’s the closest available place with beds and showers that aren’t covered in concrete dust. After that, if Fury wants us debriefed, he’ll know where to find us.”

“Lead the way, Stark,” Natasha says. “I hope you have good shampoo.”

“Romanoff, you know me,” Tony scoffs. “Only the best.”

And that’s that.

Except that two weeks pass, and…no one gets called in. 

Clint and Natasha clock in as usual, but they just end up helping out with salvaging like all of the other agents.

Steve goes and pushes a broom around on the 42nd Street or something, who knows. 

Thor sees his brother.

Tony starts up some new blueprints.

_No one gets debriefed._

_“_ Something’s going on here,” Tony says over chinese takeout. They’ve all just basically moved into what’s left of the tower because seriously, what’s SHIELD’s damage?

Oh wait.

“Surely Coulson had a second in command or something.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually disturbed by the lack of paperwork,” Clint says.

“They must be waiting for something,” Bruce says reasonably.

“What could they possibly need?” Clint demands. “All you need to debrief us is a stack of forms, a legal pad, and–”

“Coulson,” Natasha finishes. They all look at her. “We were his team. They need Coulson to do the debrief.”

“Well they don’t have him!” Tony throws up his hands. “Coulson’s–”

“What if he’s not?” Steve says, very quietly. 

“Well done,” says a voice from the doorway.

They all turn.

“Seriously?” Tony says. 

“Holy shit, it’s the ghost of debriefings past,” Clint says.

“My friend, you remain with us yet!” Thor says, leaping off his chair and scattering rice all over the place. “We were awaiting your procedures of the aftermath of battle!”

“Yes,” Coulson says, smiling slightly, “I can see that.”


	17. first on scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt: "Could you possibly do a little fic where The Avengers are fighting. And like before Tony gets to help Steve Steve gets hurt? "

There is nothing Tony hates more, in this moment, than Doombots. Give him death rays, give him alien invasions, give him anything other than these souped up terminators on steroids with their inane shouting and their frustratingly unpredictable patterns of attack.

Also, whoever sold Doctor Doom the blue prints to high radiation plasma guns needs to be shot in the face, superhero principles be damned.

“I’m gonna need support on Bleeker Street!” Clint calls down the comms, and then curses colourfully in Bulgarian.

“On my way, my friend!” Thor says, sweeping down in a low arc down a narrow alleyway.

“I hate fighting in the Village,” Natasha notes, sounding out of breath, which is never a good sign.

“We’re spread too thin this way,” Steve says, “Iron Man, what’s the ETA on SHIELD support?”

“Seven minutes,” Tony replies, because he’s been watching that damn status on his HUD every second he hasn’t been blasting robots into oblivion or dodging searing blasts of plasma. “Fury says there’s an attack in DC, so they’re spread thin, too.”

“Anyone else notice that they seem particularly frisky this morning?” Clint asks.

“Definitely noticing,” Tony says, doing a quick loop and tilt, nearly dislodging ornamental moulding on the side of a townhouse. “They’ve got a plan, but I haven’t a clue what it is. JARVIS, any ideas?”

“They appear to be trying the divide and conquer approach, sir,” JARVIS replies, “But their approach is unorthodox at best.”

“Hear that, guys? Don’t split up, best you can.”

“Too late for that, Stark,” Natasha says, and the crackle of the widow’s bite comes over sharp on the comm. “I think I might have found one with a brain though, I’ll try and get a black box if I can.”

“Hawkeye, cover her,” Steve orders.

“Where are you, Cap?” Tony asks, suddenly realising that he’s lost visual. Five minutes until SHIELD support.

“I’m in–damn, I’m not sure,” Steve says, “I’ve got three on my tail.”

“Thor, you see him?”

“Nay, Man of Iron!”

“Hulk?”

“HULK SMASH PUNY ROBOTS.”

“I’ll take that as a no. Cap, you’re gonna need to be more specific.”

“Shopping district, I think,” Steve says, sounding out of breath. “Cobblestones are slowing them a bit, but I think there are more coming my way, I’m going to have to–”

The comm emits a high whine and then goes silent.

“Captain?” Hawkeye shouts.

“ _Shit,_ ” Tony says, and guns it, streaking low through the streets, tearing a path through the bots, not caring if he takes them down or not so long as they _get out of his way._

Steve’s on a side street, and he’s taken down two bots already, but there are three more and they’re gaining ground. His left side is red from the shoulder down with blood.

“Fuck this,” Tony growls, “JARVIS, you figured out a scramble for their signal yet?" 

"No, sir.”

“Widen the parameters, then," 

"You’ll break every radio in a two mile radius, sir.”

“Does it look like I give a shit?” Tony snaps, landing hard on the cobblestones and pushing an extended repulsor blast in a long, burning arc across the chest of one of the bots.

“Very well, sir,” JARVIS says, and Tony hears the whine like hornets in his ears, shaking him apart, and then it rises and rises until suddenly it bursts out of him, a sonic boom of force that sends him reeling.

As soon as his vision clears, Tony stumbles forward, just fast enough to push a staggering bot aside and catch Steve as he crumples.

“Steve? Steve, fuck! Where'dyou, what the fuck were you thinking, you were alone, why didn’t you get me over here, fuck, shit, motherfucker–”

“Language, Tony,” Steve wheezes, his right arm apparently functional enough to grasp the shoulder of the armour and hold on.

“Least of my worries, Cap,” Tony says sharply, shucking one of his gauntlets and running his bare hand along Steve’s shoulder, finding a deep laceration along his collarbone that’s still bleeding sluggishly. “Gimme your glove, come on, I need to staunch this.”

“Bots are down for the count,” Clint reports over the comm, “Wanna tell me why you didn’t just do that in the first place, Stark?”

“Because I didn’t want to owe everyone in the Village a new radio and wifi router,” Tony replies, “And someone get me a fucking medic, STAT, Captain America is down.”

That gets everyone’s attention at least.

Tony presses Steve’s proffered glove down on the gash, knowing full well his face beneath the helmet was a mask of worry and really not caring. That is, until Steve opens his eyes just enough to look at him, and says, “Tony…”

“Yeah, Steve,” Tony says, and automatically he’s flipping up the face plate, because he knows how much it means to Steve that Tony is willing to show his face to him when they talk to each other.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Steve rasps, his gaze gone soft even while glazed with pain.

“It damn well better be,” Tony says fiercely. 


	18. old news

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For prompt: "Steve being kind of worried about people's reactions to stevetonybucky, but when he makes the announcement (or when they all find out) no one cares at all. (Tony may be a little offended that no one even raises an eyebrow.)"

Steve has been working himself up to making some sort of announcement for about a week and a half when suddenly Tony and Bucky are outed on national television, at which point all of his planning goes out the window in favour of an overabundance of righteous indignation.

“Well then,” Bruce says, as they stand around the television in the main SHIELD conference room.

Clint whistles.

“Oh, come on,” Steve says automatically, “I’m not even in the shot?”

The entire room turns to him. 

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Are you meant to be?”

Steve stutters to a halt. He had not prepared for this contingency. 

“Apparently he was, judging by the look on his face,” Clint says.

“Well then,” Bruce repeats. 

It’s at this point that Tony and Bucky come tumbling into the room and then abruptly straighten themselves out like somehow that wouldmake them look respectable.

“Ah,” Tony says, looking at the television, which is still looping slow motion footage of Bucky wrapping his cybernetic arm around the shoulders of Iron Man and pulling him in for an extended kiss. “Uh. Oops?”

“You left Steve out,” Natasha says. “He’s very hurt.”

“I’m not–” Steve starts.

“Aw, baby, don’t be like that,” Tony says immediately, sidling up to him. “We’ll make it up to you. Would a scandalous press conference suit?”

“This isn’t–” Steve tries again, a bit helplessly.

“Relax, soldier,” Bucky says, bumping shoulders and then leaning in. “We’ll get them straightened out.”

“Or not, as the case may be,” Tony snickers.

Steve looks around, at Bruce’s bemusement and Natasha and Clint’s unperturbed expressions. “This is…okay?” he asks eventually.

Clint shrugs. “Why not?”

And then, very quietly from the far side of the room, Coulson says, “Called it,” and holds out a hand.

Fury grumbles, and slaps a fifty into it.

“Press conference it is,” Tony decides. Bucky nods, grinning.

Steve figures he’d best go along with that.


	19. double-take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt: "Steve comes to the realization that Tony is actually a self-sacrificial/self-endangering maniac."

Steve is almost too wiped to notice. 

They’re devouring shawarma, sitting round a dingy table in a nondescript hole-in-the-wall restaurant and doing their level best to ignore the din of the national guard and civilians crashing around them in the aftermath.

They’re covered in blood and sweat and dust, and the owner of the restaurant had just given them a level look, and said, “Please mind the chairs, they have managed to get through today unscathed so far.”

Steve loves New York so much.

But he’s exhausted and he’s hurting and the adrenaline is draining out of him so he almost doesn’t hear it when Clint turns to Tony and says, “The hell were you gonna do if you got stuck on the other side of the universe, Stark?”

“What, other than die a swift and hopefully painless death?” Tony answers lightly, “I don’t know, enjoy the sights. Be glad you’re not all there with me. Watch things go boom, because seriously, I have never been quite so satisfied as when I saw that damn mothership explode.”

That gets a few laughs from around the table, but Steve finally focusses and looks at Tony, and what he sees isn’t what he expected. Tony looks…wistful. Like he maybe wouldn’t have minded going out that way.

Steve supposes that, of all the deaths he could have, that would have been a pretty good one. But feeling nostalgic for it, like it was something to be preferred over what was happening now, even this awkward, bizarrely delicious meal with dangerous people he barely knows, is a disconcerting reaction to see. 

_Be glad you’re not all there with me._

Oh. 

“I’m glad you made it,” Steve says suddenly. “We make a good team, all of us.”

Tony looks at him, his expression unreadable now. 

Bruce breaks the silence. “We might,” he concedes. “But I wouldn’t mind waiting a while before confirming that.”

“A-fucking-men,” Clint says.

The murmur of conversation starts up again, but Steve makes a point of keeping eye-contact with Tony, until Tony looks away.

Steve meant what he said. He’s glad Tony’s still here.


	20. easy-peasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt: "Steve/Tony/Bucky; Steve and Bucky argue on how to woo Tony. Bucky says they should just jump him already whist Steve insists that they should start off by courting him with flowers. Tony may or may not overhear their little argument."

“Look Rogers, and I mean this in the most complimentary way: Stark is easy. Easy like sunday morning. Easy like summer afternoons. Easy like–”

“I get it,” Steve cuts in, and Bucky can’t fucking believe it, he might actually be pouting. “I just don’t think we should treat him like we think that. Have a little class, for god’s sake.”

“He won’t _get_ class,” Bucky argues, “He’ll think we’re just being old fogies.”

“We are old fogies.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“I want to do this right,” Steve says earnestly. “He deserves it.”

Bucky sighs. “And we’re the only ones who think that. He doesn’t think that. You’re not talking to his level. And again, I mean that in the most complimentary way.”

“I don’t think that can be taken a complimentary way, Buck.”

“You girls gossiping? What about, do tell.”

Bucky looks at Tony, drinks in the patent leather shoes, sharkskin suit, and patterned shirt that should look ridiculous but mostly looks edible, and decides to go for broke.

“Steve and I were discussing whether you’d be amenable to us taking you to bed. Possibly more than once. Possibly regularly.”

“Bucky!” Steve squawks, “You can’t just–”

“What, no dinner first?” Tony says, but his voice is a little wavery. He’s looking at the both of them with wide eyes.

“Definitely dinner first,” Steve says firmly, stepping forward. “Dinner, and maybe a movie, and no pressure at all, if you’re–”

“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to make it through a movie without jumping both of you,” Tony interrupts, focussing abruptly. He looks at Steve, smiles crookedly, and then transforms the smile into an all-out smirk that Bucky automatically finds himself matching.

“So,” Tony says, far more firmly, “Dinner. Dinner to start. I like this plan. Was that so hard?”

“Not at all,” Bucky replies, and shoots a smug glance at Steve, “Easy as pie, in fact.”


	21. transparency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt: "The one technologically-related thing (or one of the things) Steve is better at than Tony."

“You know,” Steve says hesitantly, “People would probably like those better if you used a wider colour palette.”

Tony looks at him, affronted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Rogers,” he says, waving the Starkphone in question around, “Monochrome is simple, it’s easy and readable, it’s–”

“It’s really easy to lose track of what you’re concentrating on,” Steve says gently. “Particularly when you’re doing all your work on a clear window?”

“I’m not copying Google’s user interface look,” Tony snaps. “It’s an affront to my inventor-warrior spirit.”

“But a white background is a lot easier to see than–”

“It’s inflexible! It’s intrusive!”

“It’s not user-friendly.”

“He’s right, you know,” Pepper says, striding through the room. “You only like the interactive glass because you used to work on it in Malibu, where the only thing you could see through the glass was clear ocean and a bright sky. It doesn’t work in New York, Tony, get over it.”

“You’re oppressing my creativity. I am oppressed.”

“I think you’ll survive,” Steve says dryly.


	22. bought affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt: "Tony attempts to buy each Avenger's friendship with technology. He doesn't realize he's already won them over through entirely different means."

The third week in, it’s finally Clint who puts a stop to the madness.

“You really don’t have to do that.”

“Jesus, Barton, how’d you get in here?” Tony says, jumping away from the table and putting down the soldering iron with a clatter. He has to snatch it up again to turn the heat down a second later, and then he ends up perched, looking adrift, amid the sea of machinery.

Clint raises his eyebrows. “JARVIS let me in. Something about an intervention and saving you from yourself.”

Tony waves dismissively. “Drama queen. JARVIS, I programmed you to be the epitome of understatement, have you misplaced your British sensibility? Because I can recalibrate it–”

“Sir, my metaphorical stiff upper lip is, if anything, more strongly in place than normal.”

“Sass,” Tony mutters, “All I get is sass.”

“…Yeah,” Clint says, and has the fleeting but desperate thought that he really should have gotten Steve to do this. “I’m thinking JARVIS was right on the money here.”

“What’s the problem, here?” Tony says, spreading his arms wide. “I’ve improved Natasha’s widow’s bite by 500%, Bruce’s nanotech expanding trousers are going into production in twelve hours, and I’m pretty sure I can make antimatter artillery for your quiver, if I can just–”

“That,” Clint interrupts, “That right there. You can stop.”

“No antimatter?” Tony says, shoving his goggles up onto the top of his head, revealing a forlorn and grease-smudged look. “I know it’s generally considered unstable, but–”

“All of it,” Clint says, “You can stop.”

Tony stares at him. “I don’t get it.”

“I am so not qualified for this conversation,” Clint murmurs. And then, more audibly, “We appreciate what you’re doing here, Tony. Really, we do. But we also know you’ve got stuff to do for SI, and for SHIELD, and so you really don’t have to put us at the top of the list. We’re fine with what we have.”

“Sure, you’re fine, but you could be even better, you could be safer–”

“We’re as safe as we can be,” Natasha interrupts, and Clint nearly sags in relief. She comes up to stand behind him, and rests an elbow on his shoulder. “You don’t need to buy us, Stark.”

“I can totally afford you, though,” Tony mutters, and then winces. 

“Har har,” Natasha says dryly.

“I was bought when you caught me falling from the Chrysler Building, really,” Clint admits. “And when you lied to Fury about my fractured scapula.”

“Mm,” Natasha agrees, “And when you had my back in Rotterdam.”

“Rotterdam was a shitshow of the first order,” Tony says faintly. 

Natasha walks forward and kisses his cheek. “Relax, Tony,” she says, “You’re team now. Come on, Barton, we’re doing spaghetti westerns tonight with Thor.”

“I am not missing that,” Clint agrees, falling into step with her. He calls over his shoulder, “Any time you wanna join us, Stark, just come on up.”

“I’ll, uh. I’ll be up in a minute,” Tony says. 

Natasha smiles as the elevator doors close.


	23. coney island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt: "Coney Island!"

Tony has already heard about Steve hurling on the top of the ferris wheel, but he laughs anyway when Bucky retells it as they’re weaving through the crowds, Steve slowly turning the colour of ripe tomatoes, because Bucky’s a fantastic storyteller, okay, it’s just not the same when Steve summarises, even when he does his bashful aw-shucks act. 

“Good god, man, why’d you even let him up there when he was small?” Tony crows, “There was no way that could have ended in anything _but_ disaster!”

“He was fearless, even then,” Bucky says, smiling, “I barely even had to suggest it, and he was right there with me.”

“You remembered to bring a paper bag, though,” Steve says, his own smile crooked and warm, even while the rest of him was still red with embarrassment.

“Well, yeah. Couldn’t have you ruining my only good pair of trousers.”

“You’re both adorable,” Tony says, “It’s ridiculous. Also, I require fried things. Where can we get them?”

“Have you not been here before?” Steve asks incredulously. 

“I’ve…never really had the opportunity.”

Steve and Bucky look at each other, and then Bucky’s hand is shoved into the back pocket of Tony’s jeans and Steve’s arm is around Tony’s shoulders. 

“We should do the sharp shooter,” Steve suggests, “You can win us something giant and unwieldy that we can’t fit through the revolving doors of the tower, Buck.”

“Consider it done,” Bucky replies. “Also, enough cotton candy to fill us with regret six hours from now.”

“The wooden roller coaster.”

“The strong man–hm, we should have brought Thor…”

“I repeat my previous assessment,” Tony interrupts, but his cheeks have gone slightly pink. “You’re both adorable. Stop it before I catch something.”

“You love it,” Bucky breathes, his chin hooked over Tony’s shoulder.

Tony glances at him, and then at Steve. “I guess I do,” he agrees.


	24. bruising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon prompt: "Bucky/Tony; when Tony gets scraped up a little, he whines about it endlessly. When he's seriously injured, he retreats to his lab and locks everyone out until. Bucky's caught on."

Bucky knows the score now, and he’s the first to admit that he hates it, enough that when Tony starts pressing on his bruises and announcing it to all and sundry, Bucky actually appreciates it.

He would claim Stockholm Syndrome, but no one would take him seriously at this point. 

“You brought this upon yourself,” Natasha says, clapping him hard on the shoulder while Tony disappears downstairs without saying a word. They’ve only just come back from a massive tiff with HYDRA, in which Tony managed to get both a subway platform and half the Hudson dumped on him, and that can mean nothing good, in Bucky’s book. He sighs.

“Use my override if you need to,” Steve says, but they both know that Bucky doesn’t need to; Tony built an override into his bionic arm months ago, and fuck everyone else, Bucky’s pretty sure that’s the most romantic thing he’s ever had happen to him. 

He goes down to the lab and punches in his personal code first–best that he progress through the various levels of security to assess precisely where Tony’s at on the pain and suffering scale.

Personal code denied. JARVIS doesn’t even announce it, there’s just red light flashing from the keypad. Right. Steve’s code next, then Pepper’s. 

None of them get through, though JARVIS starts chiming in halfway through Pepper’s code.

“Lieutenant, I’m afraid Mr. Stark is not feeling particularly friendly towards visitors at this point.”

“He’ll be friendly towards me, I guarantee it,” Bucky growls, and unfurls the tiny card from his ring finger that slips into the nearly invisible slot just beneath the keypad. 

“Override accepted,” JARVIS says, with almost audible relief. “Welcome, Lieutenant Barnes.”

“I’m fine,” Tony yells from somewhere beyond the usual worktables. “Leave me alone.”

“Bullshit,” Bucky yells, equally loudly. “Put up or shut up, Stark. Where the fuck are you hiding?”

“I should never have taught you colloquialisms,” Tony says, wincing, his head becoming visible behind a fortress of broken Iron Man parts. There are visible lacerations along his neck and shoulders, and he’s hunched like his ribs are giving him trouble.

“You’re a fucking car wreck, Stark,” Bucky says, striding forward. “A hot mess without the hot.”

“Don’t hate me ‘cause I’m beautiful,” Tony retorts, but then Bucky’s extricating him from the rest of the suit, and he crumples, letting Bucky take a portion of his weight.

“Why didn’t you go to medical?” Bucky mutters, leading them both over to one of the benches where he spies a first aid kit lying nearby. “Do you actually want some more battle scars?”

“Scars are sexy, so I’ve been informed,” Tony says.

“Only,” Bucky replies, “When they’re evidence that you’ve won. Not when they make me scared for you.”

Tony sobers, and even lets Bucky start in on him with antiseptic. “I’m fine,” he says eventually. “Really.”

“You are now,” Bucky agrees. “But I’m here now too, aren’t I?”

Tony exhales. “Yeah. I guess you are.”


	25. me and you AND STEVE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For feelwhaaale's prompt: "Steve/Tony and Tony/Other based on Garfunkel and Oates’ song “Me, You, and Steve”?"

“Tony,” Pepper starts, “Can I talk to you about–oh. Hey, Steve. How’s it going?”

Steve smiles at her, “Morning, Miss Potts. I’m fine, thank you.”

“You’re here…early.”

“We had a movie marathon,” Tony says from somewhere under his fifth custom Ferrari. According to Pepper’s immaculate Excel chart, he’s been collecting them almost solely for the purpose of redesigning all of their engines in the German style just to make the Italians cry. 

“Star Wars,” Steve says, a little sheepishly, “Apparently I had to understand just how much the prequels sucked so that I could then rightfully deny their existence.”

“I’m so proud,” Tony says, emerging, a soft grin on his face. “He hates Jar-Jar Binks as much as I do. I didn’t even need to prompt him.”

“He’s incredibly annoying,” Steve agrees readily.

“We have a date tonight,” Pepper reminds Tony, cutting in, “And you’re clearly not planning on taking a nap today. Do I need to reschedule? Because if you fall asleep in the middle of the antipasto–”

“Naps are for the weak! Ooh, reservations are at Derringer, aren’t they? Steve, have you been to the Derringer? Their swordfish is to die for, you should come.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Steve starts.

“You have had swordfish, haven’t you?”

“I can’t say that I have–”

“Pepper! The man hasn’t had swordfish!”

“Swordfish are endangered,” Pepper says severely. “I can’t–you know what, never mind.”

“What? We still on?” Tony says hopefully. “I suppose the venison’s pretty good too, and Steve’s already said before that he hasn’t had that. Seriously, the man is incredibly deprived.”

Pepper stares at him. “No,” she says eventually. “Take a nap. Also, sign the papers in your inbox. I’ll be…I’ll be at the office.”

“Can I walk you to your car?” Steve asks.

“No,” Pepper replies, and has the passing thought that she should really be considered for sainthood, considering just how even her tone is in this moment, “Thank you, that won’t be necessary.”

As she slides into the back of the town car and exhales in a huff, Happy casts a look at her in the rear view mirror. “Where to, Pepper?” he asks sympathetically. 

“Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue,” Pepper replies, and folds her hands very neatly in her lap. “Tony’s black AmEx is desperately in need of some exercise.”


	26. burning crowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For caedesdeo's prompt: "1: Steve doesn’t follow rules, he knows how easily they twist so he can’t believe in them, and he’ll never follow something if he doesn’t believe in. 2: (probably Tony?) I am king in a kingdom of ashes, I burnt it down to prevent its ruin."

“You know what they want us to do, right?” Tony says. His eyes are smudged black with exhaustion, his temples are sticky with stale sweat. His hands are trembling around the crystal in his hand, the scotch inside rippling like a slow, unending earthquake.

“I do,” Steve replies. 

“I know what I’d do, usually,” Tony says. He drinks, sets down the glass. “If it were just me. If they weren’t watching us.”

Steve just looks at him steadily. “And what’s that?" 

"Destroy it,” Tony answers. He wants to look away, but Steve has him pinned, his stare heavy with his expectation, unreadable and unmovable all at once. Fuck it, Tony can’t look away, but he doesn’t _want_ to, either. “Leave nothing but a smear on the asphalt. I know we’re supposed to salvage something, so we can study it later, but I. No. If someone else sees it ever again, it’ll be too soon.”

“Fury would certainly object,” Steve agrees, but his inflection doesn’t change at all. Not even when he says, “I’d stand with you over him.”

“Even when I was the one who–”

“Especially then.”

Tony finally closes his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Don’t,” Steve says lowly. “We draw the line together now. Don’t thank me for this.”

Tony nods. “Okay.

"Let’s burn this kingdom down.”


	27. william brandt regrets everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory Mission Impossible/Avengers crossover

A lot of trouble and paperwork could have been avoided if Ethan had just called earlier.

As it was, though, Clint’s non-SHIELD-issued phone went off on a Wednesday morning and Clint barely had a chance to hit ‘Accept’ before the voice down the line said, “Brandt, you wouldn’t happen to be in the greater New York area, would you?”

Clint went from half-asleep to concerned verging on panicked. “Hunt? What the hell? _How did you–_ ”

“I’ll explain later. Remember when you said you wanted to seduce the rich guy next time?”

Clint squeezed his eyes shut. “I did say that, didn’t I,” he said.

William Brandt’s clothes, IDs, IMF gear were all still in his locker at SHEILD.

Well. It’d been quiet around the Avengers mansion lately. What could go wrong?

…

He really had to learn to stop thinking stupid shit like that.

***

The briefing was incredibly rushed–Hunt had tried his best not to call Brandt unless it was absolutely necessary because it meant revealing the fact that he _actually knew Brandt was alive_ , which, yeah, Clint was going to have to have a serious talk with Fury about SHEILD’s fake-your-death department, because this was actually one of the better scenarios Clint could think of wherein it was found out that one of his old aliases wasn’t as defunct as generally believed.

This was a better scenario, and he was getting dragged into a massive espionage mission. Yes.

He had a chance to absorb that he was posing as a programmer trying to get into some tech mogul’s good graces while Ethan was going after a terrorist cell’s paper trail, Carter was distracting the real programmer and Benji was doing…Benji things.

This was all laid out for him while Ethan tore through Brooklyn because apparently the window in which this all could happen was closing fast. Something about timed internal security. Clint was having enough trouble trying to reacquaint himself with the headspace of William Brandt without worrying about much beyond his own set of tasks.

Again, had Ethan called him earlier, he might have gotten a chance to look at the actual dossiers they were working off of, and things would have been far less troublesome.

Ethan screeched to a halt in front of a large, unwieldy looking building in the Village and snapped, “Go now. Stage one is now in progress. Here’s the guy you’re looking for.”

He tossed a picture into Clint’s lap.

Clint took one glance at it and choked. “Um.”

“Problem?” Carter said.

“Well, that depends,” Clint said slowly, unfolding himself from the car. “Your mission just got a hell of a lot easier. I, on the other hand, am going to catch so much shit.”

Ethan swung around to look at him. “Explain,” he said.

“I might as well just show you,” Clint said, shoving the photo into his pocket. “Come on. No need to break in anywhere if we play our cards right. Benji, you can come to. I have a feeling he’ll like you.”

“Who?” Benji said. “The mark?”

“The mark,” Clint agreed, manfully restraining himself from rolling his eyes because he feared if he started he might never stop. “Tony fucking Stark.”

Coulson was going to _destroy_ him.


	28. disarmed

Tony got into a routine before he joined/was shanghaied into the Avengers: After a mission, he got back to the house, and the armor came off of him in pieces.

He didn’t need the rig to take it off after mark one, even when it was badly damaged; Dummy just picked it all up and put it back into embrace of the hydraulic arms that sorted all of the parts, sending the damaged ones off to be reshaped and reassembled while the usable pieces were readied for the next time Tony needed to put them on.

So upon coming home he shed them like a second skin, leaving shards in a trail on the floor until he was at his desk. And then he sat, and maybe emptied a scotch down his gullet before the soreness kicked in, because the triumph only lasted so long and the comedown was worse than any hangover he’d ever had. He wondered if he could get addicted to hero-ing like he did everything else, and figured yes, yes he could.

He didn’t do anything to stop it.

But then Fury happened, and all the rest of his fellow fuckups happened (he supposes Natasha isn’t a fuckup really, but she’s definitely the exception that proves) and then they were in New York, _Christ_ , his own personal land of bad memories, and Captain fucking America walked in the door and the first thing he said to Tony was, “ _Howard?_ ”

And Tony just looked at him while his whole chest felt like it was caving in and said, “No. Sorry to disappoint, Cap.”

One more low blow received in NYC hardly registered at this point.

Then they all move into the Stark mansion, and so he can’t just waltz into the house after a mission any more, obviously. He goes down into the basement and he follows procedure–piles everything into their proper places and steps out of the boots and shucks off the gauntlets like he has his shit together. He does this and he does it fast, and if he’s lucky someone else will do his paperwork for him while he’s gone.

But then they have a bad day, as they were no doubt due for, and Tony can’t do it. They get to the mansion and he starts peeling off the pieces as he walks to the elevator, each piece nauseating to lose but worse to keep on.

“Dude, littering,” Clint says, and Tony flips him off.

“Not littering if it’s in my own home. Dummy will pick it up, just leave it. I’ll be in my lab.”

“Uh huh.”

Tony drops his helmet on the coffee table without another word. He doesn’t even notice that he’s been followed until the elevator doors slide shut.

“Tony.”

“Jesus Christ, Cap, can’t you give a guy some privacy?”

“This is the communal elevator,” Steve points out.

Tony waves a hand to indicate the irrelevance of that.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Tony–”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Excuse me if I’m a bit skeptical about that.”

“Can hardly stop you, can I?” The chest plate loosens with a hiss, but before Tony can fling it out the elevator doors as they open, Steve has his hands on it, easing it off and then tucking it under his arm.

“What’s wrong, Tony?” he asks.

Tony sighs, and tips his head forward. “Nothing. Nothing fixable, anyway.”

“Today could have gone better,” Steve agrees tentatively.

“It’s always worse when there’s nothing to come down from,” Tony mutters.

He hears Steve exhale on an _“Oh,”_ and then a warm hand closes around the back of his neck.

“Iron Man’s allowed to be tired, you know,” Steve says carefully, “Just like you’re allowed to be brave.”

“Hah,” Tony says softly, and Steve’s hand just tightens.

“You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?” Steve breathes, and Tony hadn’t realized that he’d tipped his head further forward to rest on the mail of Steve’s shirt. He moves to pull back, but Steve’s hand keeps him in place.

“Part of my charm,” he mumbles.

“Of course it is,” Steve answers, voice sounding oddly tight.

When Tony closes his eyes and leans into him, Steve just wraps his other arm around the small of his back, and lets him stay that way.


	29. impulse pre-dux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The quickly jotted idea of tony and bucky before it exploded out of control and became Armed and Dangerous

“Barnes. Pleasure to finally meet you.”

Bucky looked at Tony with a combination of suspicion and concealed interest. “You’re the new Stark?” he said eventually.

“Well, not exactly new anymore, but sure.” 

Tony was at his ex-CEO best, in a sharkskin suit that probably cost more than Steve’s entire wardrobe, and he was standing like a challenge, hands in his pockets and shoulders square with his head cocked to one side. Bucky, in contrast, was pale, bruised, underfed and unshaven, and still in scrubs (much to his disgust). He was holding himself with as much military discipline as he could from the hospital bed, but it didn’t do much for his shrunken appearance.

He was also holding a tablet PC, which he now waved at Tony. “So you sent this? That redheaded dame said it was a gesture of goodwill from Stark Industries.”

Tony smirked. “Yep. When I saw what Fury was giving you in the way of cultural briefing, I was kind of offended on both yours and Steve’s behalf, because seriously, Cap, all of your issues with the 21st century totally make sense now–”

“Hey!” Steve protested. Tony ignored him.

“–so I figured I’d let the internet do the talking this time. Did you know that I had to divert a satellite just to get you a wi-fi signal in here? SHIELD is kind of really intent on you only hearing what they want you to hear.”

“I’ve noticed,” Bucky said dryly. “You do realize that in doing that, you also let me look you up?”

Tony leered. “Hell of an introduction, I’d say. Like what you saw?”

From what Steve knew of Bucky’s taste in dames (which was a lot, more than he ever wanted to know, really), he hadn’t expected shamelessness to be a deal-sealer, but the way Bucky’s gaze was sharpening definitely pointed in that direction. 

It was around this time that Steve started to feel the beginnings of a horrible sort of trepidation. 

“Dunno,” Bucky said after a pause, “I’m kinda wishing I hadn’t missed the whole ‘Merchant of Death’ stage of your life, it sounded like a hell of a ride.”

Steve knew enough about Tony at this point that he was fully prepared to step in and prevent Tony slugging Bucky in the face at this point. Instead, however, Tony narrowed his eyes slightly before baring his teeth in something resembling a grin. He pointed at the empty space where Bucky’s arm should have been.

“Missing something?”

Bucky’s face seemed to go through the same process Tony’s just had, his chin jutting out. “What’s it to you, Stark?”  
  
“I haven’t gone into prosthetics yet, but it could be an interesting diversion.” Tony’s eyebrow twitched up; yet another challenge. “Who knows? Maybe, just for you, I’ll make something more than just an arm. Something with… _projectiles_. You seem like the type of man who’d like a limb with ammunition.”  
  
Bucky was trying not to betray a genuine smile. Steve could see it. He had…not expected this.  
  
“Think about it,” Tony said lightly. “And lemme know when SHIELD finally lets you out of this prison of a government building. Got a room in Stark Tower with your name on it, same as your big band buddy over here. Google the place–you have figured out Googling by this point, yes?–I think you’ll find it’s prime real estate. Better than Brooklyn, which is unfortunately overrun with hipsters now.” He looked at his watch. “Pepper might destroy me in the face if I’m late for this meeting, so I’ve gotta go. But I’ll catch you both later. Ciao.”  
  
He jerked his head in farewell and sauntered out.   
  
Bucky looked at Steve with a gleam of amusement in his gaze. “So,” he drawled, “I see you’re keeping interesting company as usual, Rogers. Not replacing me already, are you?”  
  
Steve felt his whole face go pink.“What? Bucky, no–”  
  
“Kidding, jeez. About the replacement, but not about the interesting. Stark’s got a mouth on him, just like his old man.”  
  
“If anything, it’s worse,” Steve said dryly.  
  
And for only the second time since he’d woken up, Bucky _laughed_.

_Oh god,_  Steve thought to himself.  _This is going to be terrible._


End file.
